SHREVEPORT, La. – The Newt Gingrich presidential campaign is taking on more of a marathoner's pace to accompany its insistence that Gingrich plans to see the Republican nomination contest through to the August convention.
While leading candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum sparred in Illinois on Monday, the former U.S. House speaker from Georgia convened about 15 top campaign advisers outside Washington, D.C., to examine the months ahead. Gingrich strategist Kellyanne Conway said the meeting focused on how best to allocate the campaign’s limited resources.
“They’re forced to focus on the tete-a-tete, the here and now, you versus me, what is done today,” Conway said of Romney and Santorum. “Where we are starting at the convention and working backwards and looking at states where we can pick up delegates.”
Though Gingrich campaigned for two days in Illinois last week, polls indicate he is not a threat to win Tuesday’s primary. Instead it is the latest Midwestern stage for a frenetic battle between Santorum and Romney, with Romney having narrowly triumphed in Ohio and Michigan.
Meanwhile, on the Gingrich campaign, traveling staffers are being encouraged to rotate off from the grind of the campaign trail. Gingrich himself spent the weekend at home, where he and his wife, Callista, were spotted strolling amid blooming cherry blossoms, touring the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and dining at a French restaurant in Washington.
“The question is always how to maximize and leverage the most of Newt, but being realistic about the places where we’re most competitive,” Conway said. “And the fact is, it’s easy to forget but he’s a human being, so giving him time to think and rest and all that kind of stuff. It’s not what everybody wants it to be, which is some kind of dramatic exit or fading into the shadows. Hopefully those headlines are done.”
Gingrich held the strategy meeting Monday morning before flying to Louisiana, where he plans to spend the week campaigning ahead of Saturday’s primary.
In the wake of second-place finishes in Mississippi and Alabama last week, Gingrich endured a fresh round of calls for him to exit the race – from conservatives eager to see Santorum consolidate the anti-Romney vote and party leaders concerned that Gingrich’s avowed desire for a contested GOP convention in August could damage Republican hopes in the general election.
Gingrich has said that if he felt Santorum could defeat Romney – and President Barack Obama – one-on-one, he would gladly step aside, but he does not. There is evidence that even without Gingrich in the race, Santorum would struggle against the former Massachusetts governor. A Gallup poll released last week showed that 40 percent of Gingrich voters listed their second choice as Romney, to 39 percent for Santorum.
The former Pennsylvania senator also has struggled with assembling an organization in key states, and his decision to campaign in Puerto Rico last week appeared to be a major blunder after Romney won more than 80 percent of the vote and all 20 of the island’s delegates Sunday.
An Associated Press tally shows Romney ahead with 521 delegates, followed by Santorum with 253, Gingrich with 136 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 50. To win the nomination, a candidate must secure 1,144 delegates.
“I think Santorum should want us in,” Conway said. “I know he wants a clear shot at Romney, but does he really want Romney to have a clear shot at him?”
Gingrich is still smarting from the clear shots Romney and an allied Super PAC took at him ahead of the Iowa caucuses and the Florida primary, when his momentum was stymied by a barrage of television attack ads that Gingrich insists were misleading. At this point, Gingrich has no real shot to clinch the nomination prior to the convention and has only won the South Carolina and Georgia primaries. He sees an opportunity to pick up delegates in Louisiana, as he is stronger in the South.
Gingrich has performed woefully outside the region, but his campaign is looking at his birthplace of Pennsylvania, Callista’s home state of Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, where Santorum did not make the ballot, as states where Gingrich can siphon a few delegates away from the front-runners in the next few weeks.
The under-the-radar strategy will likely be a tough sell to donors, and sustaining a long-shot bid brings difficult considerations for the candidate. U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Marietta Republican, continues to strongly support Gingrich but said any presidential hopeful at this point has to start worrying about personal finances.
“I’m sure those are some of the things that go through a candidate’s mind as they are wondering, waiting for my ship to come in,” Gingrey said. “How deep in debt can we afford to go before it scares the bejeesus out of me?”
Gingrich has given no public indication that such a time is approaching, and he hammered home the long-haul strategy at Monday's meeting, according to Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond.
As the meeting wound down, Hammond said Gingrich asked his campaign manager, Michael Krull, to remind Gingrich and the staff each day how many days remain until the convention.
As of Monday, it was 161.
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